Niggas done killed the Rose Man

I haven't been to any ghetto clubs in any cities other than St. Louis, but I'm assuming every city has its own Rose Man, i.e. the guy whose job it is to sell roses to guys in nightclubs trying to get their simp on.

Last night, I checked the STL Today website to make sure nothing important had happened in St. Louis, as is usually the case, and I saw that St. Louis' own Rose Man (there's only one of them?) had been shot and kiled in a nightclub this weekend. I was like, damn. Not the Rose Man!

Then I hopped in the van and went to cop some of the Great American Lager. Not because I was down about the Rose Man or anything, but because I was out. On the way, I figured I'd tune in to the local "hip-hop" station. When you work for a hip-hop magazine, sometimes you start to feel guilty about not even knowing which rap songs are currently popular.

So I turn on the local hip-hop station and, wouldn't you know, they're talking about the motherfucking Rose Man - how this was such a tragedy, and how people are gonna have to be more careful going to certain clubs and what have you. They even went so far as to observe a moment of silence, as if this was 9/11. For like 30 seconds, if not a full minute, there was nothing but silence on the radio. If you just flipped to that station, you'd have no idea what was going on.

Apparently, this guy was a big deal.

The weird thing is, he actually got shot at a strip club. A gunman pulled up to the Soft Touch, one of the two main black night clubs in the St. Louis area, and fired shots into the club, hitting the Rose Man and another guy. The Rose Man was taken to a hospital, where he ended up dying. The other guy is being treated for his injuries at an undisclosed location. Hmm...

Which of course begs the question: Why would the Rose Man be at a strip club in the first place? It would seem counter intuitive to me that he'd be there selling roses. It's not like you take your wife or girlfriend to a strip club. (Granted you do see the occasional redneck couple there getting some glitter on their faces.) And who buys a rose for a stripper? Not to stereotype, but strippers strike me as the kind of hardened, unsentimental broads who'd much rather have the $2 or however much the rose cost.

I asked my little brother, who I don't think is as sophisticated a thinker as I am, if he thought the Rose Man was there selling roses, and he was like, "Yeah, probably." And for what it's worth, the story on the shooting in the Post-Dispatch does say he was there selling roses. Well, regardless, I'm sure he'd take a glance over at the stage every now and again. I know I would.

Checkit: Shooting victim Lee Nixon was flower-selling nightclub fixture [STL Today]

After the jump is my own personal video tribute to the Rose Man. Who knows how many times he helped a guy get some stank on his hanglow. He will be missed.